Laurence Lerner (Laurence David Lerner) Biography

British poet, critic, and novelist, born in Cape Town, South Africa, educated at the University of Cape Town and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After holding a succession of academic posts in Africa and Britain, he became a professor at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, in 1985. His collections of poetry include Domestic Interior (1959), Selves (1969), The Man I Killed (1980), and Rembrandt's Mirror (1987). Selected Poems appeared in 1984. The restrained rationalism and formal accomplishment of his earlier work conformed to the conventions established by the Movement. Successive volumes retained his characteristic qualities of intelligence and directness while revealing adventurously imaginative developments. The element of wit in his work is most evident in A. R. T. H. U. R.: The Life and Opinions of a Digital Computer (1974) and A. R. T. H. U. R. and M. A. R. T. H. A.: Or, the Loves of the Computers (1980), his verse dialogues for computers. His novels include A Free Man (1968) and My Grandfather's Grandfather (1985). Among his numerous works of criticism are The Uses of Nostalgia (1972), Essays on Literature and Society (1982), and The Frontiers of Literature (1988).